Within the early Nineties, Toyota noticed that environmental consciousness and tighter emissions rules would form the way forward for the automotive business. The corporate aimed to create an eco-friendly, environment friendly vehicle that might meet future requirements.
In 1997 Toyota launched the Prius to the Japanese market. The automobile was the world’s first mass-produced hybrid automobile that mixed gasoline and electrical energy to cut back gas consumption and emissions. Its worldwide debut got here in 2000.
Creating the Prius posed vital technical and market challenges that included designing an environment friendly hybrid energy prepare, managing battery know-how, and overcoming shopper skepticism about combining an electrical drivetrain system with the usual gasoline-fueled energy prepare. Toyota persevered, nonetheless, and its instincts proved prescient and transformative.
“The Prius will not be solely the world’s first mass-produced hybrid automobile, however its technical and business success additionally spurred different automakers to speed up hybrid automobile improvement,” says IEEE Member Nobuo Kawaguchi, a professor within the computational science and engineering division at Nagoya University’s Graduate School of Engineering, in Japan. He’s additionally secretary of the IEEE Nagoya Section. “The Prius helped form the function of hybrid automobiles in at present’s automotive market.”
The Prius was honored with an IEEE Milestone on 30 October throughout a ceremony held at firm headquarters in Toyota Metropolis, Japan.
The G21 venture
The event of the Prius started in 1993 with the G21 project, which centered on gas effectivity, low emissions, and affordability. In keeping with a Toyota article detailing the venture’s historical past, by 1997, Toyota engineers—together with Takeshi Uchiyamada, who has since change into generally known as the “father of the Prius”—have been glad they’d met the problem of reaching all three objectives.
The primary-generation Prius featured a compact design with aerodynamic effectivity. Its groundbreaking hybrid system enabled easy transitions between an electrical motor powered by a nickel–steel hydride battery and an inside combustion engine fueled by gasoline.
The automobile’s design included regenerative braking within the power-train association to reinforce the automobile’s energy efficiency. Regenerative braking captures the kinetic power sometimes misplaced as warmth when standard brake pads cease the wheels with friction. As an alternative, the electrical motor switches over to generator mode in order that the wheels drive the motor in reverse somewhat than the motor driving the wheels. Utilizing the motor as a generator slows the automobile and converts the kinetic power into {an electrical} cost routed to the battery to recharge it.
“The Prius will not be solely the world’s first mass-produced hybrid automobile, however its technical and business success additionally spurred different automakers to speed up hybrid automobile improvement.” —Nobuo Kawaguchi, IEEE Nagoya Part secretary
In keeping with the corporate’s “Harnessing Efficiency: A Deep Dive Into Toyota’s Hybrid Technology” article, a breakthrough was the Hybrid Synergy Drive, a system that enables the Prius to function in several modes—electrical solely, gasoline solely, or a mix—relying on driving situations.
A key element Toyota engineers developed from scratch was the ability break up machine, a planetary gear system that enables easy transitions between electrical and gasoline energy, allowing the engine and the motor to propel the automobile of their respective optimum efficiency ranges. The association helps optimize gas economic system and simplifies the drivetrain by making a standard transmission pointless.
Setting fuel-efficiency data
Practically 30 years after its business debut, the Prius stays an icon of environmental accountability mixed with technical innovation. It’s nonetheless setting data for gas effectivity. When in July 2023 the newly launched 2024 Prius LE was pushed from Los Angeles to New York Metropolis, it consumed a miserly 2.52 liters of gasoline per 100 kilometers throughout the 5,150-km cross-country journey. The document was set by a so-called hypermiler, a driver who practices superior driving methods aimed toward optimizing gas effectivity. Hypermilers speed up easily and keep away from exhausting braking. They let off the accelerator early so the automobile can coast to a gradual cease with out making use of the brakes, they usually drive as usually as doable at speeds between 72 and 105 km per hour, the velocities at which a automobile is usually best.
A driver not using such methods nonetheless can count on gas economic system as excessive as 4.06 L per 100 km from the newest era of Prius fashions.
Toyota has superior the Prius’s hybrid know-how with every era, solidifying the automobile’s function as a pacesetter in gas effectivity and sustainability.
Milestone occasion attracts luminaries
Uchiyamada gave a quick discuss on the IEEE Milestone occasion in regards to the Prius’s improvement course of and the challenges he confronted as chief G21 engineer. Different notable attendees have been Takeshi Uehara, president of Toyota’s power-train firm; Toshio Fukuda, 2020 IEEE president; Isao Shirakawa, IEEE Japan Council historical past committee chair; and Jun Sato, IEEE Nagoya Section chair.
A plaque recognizing the know-how is displayed on the entrance of the Toyota Technical Center, which is inside strolling distance of the corporate’s headquarters. It reads:
“In 1997 Toyota Motor Company developed the world’s first mass-produced hybrid automobile, the Toyota Prius, which used each an inside combustion engine and two electric motors. This automobile achieved revolutionary gas effectivity by recovering and reusing power beforehand misplaced whereas driving. Its success helped popularize hybrid automobiles internationally, superior the know-how important for electrical energy trains, contributed to the discount of CO2 emissions, and influenced the design of subsequent electrified automobiles.”
Administered by the IEEE History Center and supported by donors, the Milestone program acknowledges excellent technical developments worldwide. The IEEE Nagoya Part sponsored the nomination.
